Objective: Autonoetic awareness enables to mentally relive personal events in memory to be aware of one’s own experiences across subjective time and so to have a feeling of individuality and self ... [more ▼]

Objective: Autonoetic awareness enables to mentally relive personal events in memory to be aware of one’s own experiences across subjective time and so to have a feeling of individuality and self-direction. It is intimately associated with our awareness of ourselves as persons with a past and a future. Autonoetic awareness thereof contributes to construction of our identity by the recovery of past events, particularly specific events, and the imagination of future events. According to Danion’s theoretical model (2001), autonoetic awareness impairment is at the heart of schizophrenia. This deficit should depend on defective associations between separate aspects of the events during the recall and therefore, it is associated with a reduction in accessing specific information in autobiographical memory (AM). This impairment should explain identity perturbation, cognitive deficits, negative and positive symptomatology present in schizophrenia. Supporting this model, the present study evaluates the effect of a cognitive and behavioural intervention called Self-Awareness Therapy (SAT) on autonoetic awareness, AM and the capacity to imagine oneself in the future, in schizophrenia patients. Method: Fifteen patients with schizophrenia participated to SAT and, 8 patients took part in the Integrative Program Therapy (IPT) of Brenner. Before and after therapy, patients were asked to complete questionnaires to evaluate the autonoetic awareness, AM, projection into the future as well as affective and symptomatology scales. Results: For SAT, the participants reported more specific past and future events after than before the remediation therapy. Furthermore, patients reported significantly less depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as less negative symptoms after compared before the SAT. For IPT, no significant differences emerged. Discussion: These results are in line with previous study (Blairy et al., 2008) and support the notion that, in schizophrenia the retrieving of past specifics memories and projection into the future can be improved. La conscience autonoétique (CA) nous permet de revivre mentalement des évènements personnellement vécus, d’en prendre conscience à travers un temps subjectif et de ressentir un sentiment d’individualité. Elle contribue à la construction de notre identité via la récupération d’évènements passés, particulièrement les évènements spécifiques, et l’imagination d’évènements futurs. Selon le modèle de Danion (2001), une perturbation au niveau de la CA serait au cœur de la schizophrénie. Celle-ci résulterait d’un relâchement des associations entre les différents éléments d’un évènement lors du rappel et dés lors, serait associée à une réduction de l’accès aux informations spécifiques en mémoire autobiographique. Cette perturbation pourrait expliquer les troubles de l’identité, les déficits cognitifs ainsi que la symptomatologie présents dans la schizophrénie. Afin de remédier à ces déficits, nous avons élaboré une intervention cognitive et comportementale, destinée à des patients schizophrènes, qui s’appuie sur ce modèle. Cette étude présente les résultats préliminaires de la SAT en la comparant au 1er module du programme IPT. [less ▲]